Hi there! When I heard Forgotten Gods had a new race in it I was curious to see it and I liked your work so far, so I bought it.

I have to say, Satyr seems a little... OP. While based on Race Points, they might only be a /little/ stronger than humans, like Aasimar, I suspect that system is flawed.

1. +2 to two ability scores of the Player's choice is unprecedented outside of a human who trades away their bonus feat and skill point. (Actually, that suggests an RP value of about 16, better than Aasimar). If they put one of those +2 in Int for skill points, they are flat-out better than a human.

Basically, they're more flexible than humans (the flexible race), can do everything ponies can do, and don't have ponies' drawbacks of lack of hands. Doesn't this seem a bit OP? Is there going to be errata? Could I be missing something?

A unicorn satyr gets -2 strength, putting them far closer in line to most other races(+2/+2/-2). If we assume they go for int, wanting to maximize their unicorn tricks, this leaves them as a slightly more flexible unicorn pony. If they put one in strength, they end up with a single +2. They also don't get the other things unicorns get(bonus to concentration, additional use of unseen servant and light, and the quadruped bonuses to carrying capacity and vs trip, 40 ft base movement)

They do get a bonus feat, but if they plan to use any fancy pony tricks, this bonus feat is already thoroughly spoken for. If we're still rolling with the unicorn satyr, practiced horn magic is likely in their future before they can think about -any- feats directly related to their class/role if they plan to be a mind-wielding bad ass. Pony feats are... feats, they are hungry for all the feats. The bonus feat barely lets you get started down most of their lines.

If you're going for a pegasus, you'll be using that bonus feat just to fly, and you can't even take that till fifth level. But at least you're pretty good at avoiding falling damage.

The other options(the ones you can swap in unique destiny for) all snatch away your bonus feat, reducing their flexibility under humans by the nature of that trade.

Not shooting anyone down. How about we do an experiment, for science(and ponies). Let's decide on a class to take to 5th level using a pure human, a satyr, and a pure pony, and see what we can do. Maybe satyrs are crazy OP, let's find out!

I usually use a point-buy system that I'm enamored of for d20 System-based games.

On seeing this topic, I decided to calculate the pony satyr race (both the "normal" version and the horned version) under that system. Under these mechanics, a race that uses 31 Character Points or less is a "standard" (or, in older parliance, a +0 ECL) race. If it's 32 CP or above, then it's overpowered (e.g. +1 ECL). That still leaves a lot of room for variation even among the standard races...but then, that fits with the standard races as they're presented now anyway.

What I found was slightly surprising.

The standard pony satyr is overpowered, but only just barely, weighing in at 33 Character Points. By contrast, the horned pony satyr was slightly less, managing to come in under the line at 31 CP exactly; that's because the -2 to Strength brought things down more than the spell-like abilities were worth.

Normally I'd show my work, but I'm leery of reposting the entirety of the pony satyr racial traits here, even using a d20 variant, since that'd be essentially giving them away for free.

The -2 Str and having to give up your feat for the craziest stuff helps, but still, +2 to any two scores seems like a bit too much. It's more flexible than a human at the human's own game!

This may require more analysis, but let's run with the example we have and look at the fighter who goes nuts with crazy multiwielding. Let's take it to level 6 so that second attacks come into it. (Of course, this all pales to the damage of an optimized magus with a high crit range weapon, so maybe it doesn't really matter /that/ much...)

Looking at it further, I suppose it's vague whether two-weapon and multiweapon fighting work, since it doesn't explicitly say your magic counts as a 'hand'. Can creatures with prehensile tentacles use multiweapon fighting?

It occurs to me that where this build might /really/ shine is being a quadwielding sneak attack monster. Unicorns with their -2 dex have a problem even qualifying for two-weapon fighting (although, if they want to break out the spiked horseshoes, the requirements for multiweapon fighting are lower. Hmm,) but satyrs can put a +2 in dex easily.

I was going to compare with fighters, but let's look at rogues:At level 5, all have 6 feats to work with (thanks to combat trick and finesse rogue).

The multiweapon-fighting unicorn has to spend more than they'd like to get the required 13 dex, but they can do it. Two feats for telekinesis, multiweapon fighting, weapon focus brings us to four... there are many directions they can go with this, but now they've got two attacks at +7 and two at +5 (they took a 14 str and use spiked horseshoes.)

The satyr has to spend 3 for full telekinesis, one for multiweapon fighting, and one for weapon finesse.With an 18 dex, 3 BAB, a masterwork weapon, and multiweapon penalties, he's swinging /four/ daggers or the like at +6, with +3d6 sneak attack each.If weapon finesse doesn't work for magic, he needs a strong int too, so it's more like two at +6 and two at +5.

Huh. I actually didn't think of multiweapon fighting for unicorns until today. It seems a lot of this comes down to how two-weapon and multiweapon fighting, as well as weapon finesse, interact with telekinesis.

Still, aside from the one-trick pony (ha) of quad-wielding, it seems a bit nuts that they can be better humans than humans and have access to the pony feats, but it's true that they're worse at them than the quadrupeds are, which may make up for having hands. However, I still kind of question that satyrs are better at being humans than humans are. +2 to two scores, flat-out better if one of them is int, and they do pony stuff too. Have you looked at it that way? If I may ask, why did you stat them the way you did?

Okay, 32 CP. That's also presuming that the benefits for being quadrupedal (which includes +10 to movement) and the drawbacks of being "fingerless" (e.g. only one "hand" for wielding items, and a slight restriction on magic item slots, e.g. the ring and hand slots are the same, manifesting as anklets) essentially cancel each other out.

To summarize, the basic earth pony, pony satyr, and horned satyr are all very well balanced against each other. However, they're all dancing right at the line between what's acceptable for a "standard" race and what would, at least in 3.5, be powerful enough to require a level adjustment.

Last edited by Alzrius on Tue Feb 10, 2015 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hm, interesting analysis. It seems they are alright compared to ponies, but perhaps a bit much compared to their human kin? Balancing against humans is hard in the adaptability department. This boils down to a lot of races, but perhaps too much flexibility here.

My first thought is changing up their ability mods some (Maybe a choice of three ability mod sets, or the standard human/half-human +2 to one score and then the subtype sets the other +2 and a -2), but really, the question here is, what are satyrs supposed to /do/? What's their concept, when it comes to 'stuff they are good at' and 'how they are different from and similar to their parent races'? Maybe there's a better way to mechanically express it.